Innocent's Champion

by Meriel Fuller

  Guilt—black, coruscating blame coursed through him. What had he done? Caught up in the diaphanous web of her beauty, he had taken her innocence without thought, plundering the delicious softness of her body, rolling around on the inhospitable ground with her as if they were roughneck peasants. His thoughtless actions had destroyed her future. She was damaged goods now, unfit for marriage.

  Eyes closed, Matilda shuffled alongside him, her fingers tangling with the short, blond hairs on his chest. She rubbed her cheek against the flank of his torso, sighing with pleasure. Nobody had told her that being with a man could be like this. Both her mother and her sister had told her it was a case of ‘lying back and putting up with it.’ Her flesh luxuriated in the flickering aftermath, a beloved ache resonating through her loins, her belly. She wanted to rest there for ever, savouring the sinewy ridge of muscle beneath her forearm, the strong curve of his shoulder against her cheek.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she whispered hesitantly.

  Beneath her fingers, his chest heaved, a deep unsteady breath. ‘About how badly I have treated you.’

  ‘Badly?’ Placing one palm against his bare torso, she levered herself up, bending her legs sideways. The white chemise, sodden with water, shimmered against her flesh, highlighting every tempting curve of her. ‘What do you mean?’

  Mouth set in a grim, unsmiling line, Gilan sprang to his feet, yanking on his trousers, struggling with his shirt, his tunic. He bent down to scoop up his leather belt and scabbard, wrenching the leather tongue of his sword belt through the silver buckle, bending it back with unnecessary violence to secure the clasp. A sour taste clung to the roof of his mouth, the taste of self-disgust.

  Matilda eyed his blank, dispassionate expression. A horrible sickness slithered through her veins. A tiny voice chewed at the back of her brain: you were a disappointment, not good enough. Was her memory so bad that she failed to recall the night in the cave and how he had responded to her then? Despite what he had said, he had pushed her away, discarded her. And now, here she was again, back for more, like a foolish moth to a stupid flame. Why had she expected him to behave in any other way? She had been warned. Only this time, the stakes had been far, far higher. Thrusting her chin in the air, she bit down hard on the treacherous wobble of her bottom lip, bracing herself for a renewed onslaught of rejection.

  A muscle jumped in the side of his jaw. ‘I mean,’ he replied with icy heaviness, ‘that I took something that didn’t belong to me, Matilda. Something I should never have taken, however great the temptation.’ His eyes flicked over her, angry, hard. ‘I took your innocence, took away the one thing that would have ensured you a good marriage, a secure future. Now you have nothing.’

  I have the memory of you, she thought with a rush. Sadness gripped her heart. Pinning a bright, overly confident expression on her face, she scrambled to her feet, arms wrapped around her middle as if to protect herself from further assault. ‘And I told you before, I have no wish to marry. So what you say is of no consequence.’

  He scowled, picking up her clothes and throwing them towards her. The ragged, handwoven fabric jumbled across her toes. ‘You say that now, Matilda, but it’s a hard life living alone as a single, unmarried woman.’

  Shock sliced through her belly. What had she expected? That he would go down on bended knee and ask for her hand in marriage? No, he was not that sort of man. He was a soldier, a fighter, with hidden demons plaguing his conscience; too volatile, too physical to adapt to any sedate domestic routine.

  Resolve hardening, she settled her shoulders in a straight line. She would have to be strong. ‘I live alone already.’ Her voice rose, trembling slightly. ‘You make out it’s all your fault, Gilan, that we laid together, but I knew what I was doing. You gave me a choice. I could have stepped away.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ he asked quietly.

  Because I love you. Her unspoken words shimmered in the air between them, hung like a promise. She knew it. She had known it almost from the time she had first met him. She was drawn to him. She loved him.

  ‘Because I wanted to know…’ she tipped her head on one side ‘…to know what it can be like, between a man and a woman.’ And I wanted it to be you.

  He clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘My God, Matilda, are you telling me you slept with me out of some misguided sense of convenience?’

  No, I slept with you because I wanted to.

  She shrugged, sticking one foot in her trousers, dragging the unwieldy fabric up her leg. ‘Maybe the words came out wrong,’ she said, ‘but I only want to absolve you of any remorse that you might be feeling on my part. I will be fine, Gilan. Truly. It’s fine.’ Even to her own ears, her voice rang out with an unnatural, jerky brashness, betraying her true feelings.

  ‘Fine?’ he bawled at her. ‘Matilda, think…how can it be? I took your virginity, ruined you, and you tell me that it’s fine? As if all we did was take a gentle stroll in the countryside, holding hands, not tumbled together like two rutting animals on the ground!’

  His disparaging words stabbed at her, furious tears springing to her eyes. How dare he? How dare he belittle such a wonderful act, coarsen it? ‘It wasn’t like that!’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Then how was it, Matilda?’ His burning eyes snapped over her, goading. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It was the most amazing, thrilling experience that I’ve ever had in my whole life,’ she blurted out, words stumbling out over each other. ‘And if it never happens to me again, then it wouldn’t matter because I will still have the memory of you.’

  Her simple words smacked him straight in the chest. Hard. Temper died in his throat, snuffed out by her honesty. Awestruck, his heart turned over, contracting with emotion. He grabbed her hand, thumb unconsciously playing along the inner seam of her palm. ‘Matilda, stop this.’ He shook his head. ‘I know what you’re trying to do and it’s your kind heart that’s making you do it. Stop trying to absolve me of any guilt. What I did to you was unforgivable.’

  ‘I forgive you, Gilan. Without you, I would never have known.’

  ‘Without me, you would have found yourself a decent husband!’ he flashed back. ‘Stop trying to make me a better man than I am, Matilda. You constantly see the good in me, like you do with others…like you did with your sister’s husband. But it’s no good. I cannot be the person you want me to be. Things have happened in my life…things that I am not proud of.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be anyone else but the man that stands before me,’ she said, her breath hitching at the risk she was taking. ‘I have seen you, Gilan. I know you. You like to pretend that you don’t care, but you do. You cared when my sister was in labour, you cared enough to protect me from my brother-in-law, so how can you say such things? Despite what you think, Gilan, you have a heart.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Matilda.’ His hands dropped away.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter anyway,’ she replied, her voice little, forlorn, her breath shrinking inwards on itself. She stifled a long shuddering breath. So be it. She had tried to reach him, tried to tell him. But he simply wouldn’t listen, blinkered by whatever dark devils held his heart in thrall.

  He watched as the rift of sadness crossed her face, as she hitched her gaze away with shadowed eyes and knew genuine, heartfelt shame. He had broken her and left her in pieces, shattered. There was nothing he could do to make it better. The situation was hopeless.

  * * *

  The next morning arrived far too soon, the thick air laden with the promise of a scorching day to follow. The birds had woken early, chirruping and trilling through the trees, calling to each other with incessant song. Golden light filtered down through the dancing green leaves, striking the wet grass around the sleeping soldiers, the heavy dew forming a sparkling net of droplets. Across the river’s lustrous surface, a light mist veiled upwards, burning off slowly in the ri
sing heat of the sun. A dazzling flash of a bird startled the gentle scene, colourful feathers skimming the limpid water, dipping, then soaring up, up, wings beating strongly.

  Wrapped in the smelly blanket, the material sticky with grease and sweat, Matilda had no wish to move. All she wished was to become invisible, to hide away and lick her wounded pride in private. Her limbs ached; her eyes were scoured dry from lack of sleep. The walk back from the river last night had been uncomfortable, awkward. Arms crossed high against his chest, unspeaking, Gilan had waited until she had dressed and rebraided her hair, watching her crawl around the ground to pick up the silver hairpins, released, forgotten, from her fingers at the first touch of his lips. Mouth clamped in the agony of humiliation, she had scrabbled around for them in the river mud, forcing them savagely into her scalp to secure her hair.

  Flesh tingling from the aftermath of his lovemaking, Matilda had followed his burly frame resentfully through the woodland. His long strides were brisk and she had tripped, stumbling to keep up with him. She wanted to hate him, but her heart stopped her, clouding with such misery that the temptation to fall on her knees in the dank earth and weep threatened to engulf her.

  She was aware of the soldiers around her beginning to stir, to roll from their blankets, to straighten up with a myriad of groans and coughs. Harnesses jangled; the sound of creaking leather, of stoppers on drinking flagons being pulled, pervaded the air. How wonderful it would be to lie here until they had all vanished, Gilan included. Maybe they would even forget about her and leave her to brood on her own downfall. Her eyes popped open, long lashes scratching against the coarse weave of the blanket; no, that was not the way, she was a fighter, remember, not a quitter. And right now, especially after what had happened with Gilan, finding her brother was of paramount importance.

  A boot jabbed violently into her side. ‘Hey, boy, can you shoot?’ a voice bellowed down at her. Henry.

  Matilda twisted around, untangling the blanket from her arms, and sat up, eyes blearily adjusting to the stocky man looming over her.

  ‘Yes, yes I can,’ she managed to croak out. Her right flank ached, pain sifting through her muscles from the point where Henry had kicked her.

  ‘Good, we need everyone today, in case we need to fight. Here, have this.’ He threw down a bow and a quiver of arrows. They hit the dense pile of leaf mould beside her with scarcely a whisper. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gilan, hefting his saddle up from the base of a tree as he watched her and Henry, then caught the slightest shake of his head.

  Damn him! she thought. How could she possibly refuse Henry’s order, without drawing attention to herself? How could she not shoot? Surely it would look far worse if she hung back fearfully, skulking around the corners of a fight. Scrambling to her feet, she shouldered the bow, slinging the cloth tube that held the arrows across her back and went down to the shoreline to help with the horses. Chucking the bow and arrows down onto the loose stones, she hoisted her unwieldy saddle into place, made more difficult as the horse’s back was on a level with her eyebrows.

  ‘Grow some legs, lad!’ With a raucous chuckle, one of the soldiers clapped her smartly on the back as he passed. She ducked her head beneath the mare’s belly, reaching around to fasten up the leather straps to hold the saddle in place, the horse’s flank warm and smooth against her cheek. Once secured, she straightened up, careful not to bring her head up too fast so that her hood slipped out of place.

  ‘Drink?’ A leather bottle, the stitched seams rubbed pale with use, was shoved into her line of vision. She tilted her head, arching one ebony-coloured brow. Gilan towered above her, hefty shoulders blocking out the sun. Her heart jolted, knifed through with a renewed line of anguish. Her breathing quickened, raced. She wanted to shove the tanned hand away, to dash the bottle to the ground and watch the contents slosh out, sink away. But then everyone would see and question the apparent fury in a peasant lad towards a noble knight.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ she replied, her voice a mocking chant. Her fingers clasped around the neck of the bottle and she tipped some of the contents down her throat, wiping the stray droplets away from her chin with one sleeve. His eyes were upon her, frowning at the stark white of her face beneath the hood, fatigue creasing out from the corners of her eyes.

  She caught the look in his eyes. ‘Don’t,’ she muttered quietly beneath her breath. ‘Don’t you dare!’

  He frowned, lower lashes fanning spikily over his high cheekbones. ‘Dare…?’

  The lifting sunlight touched the pale wheat of his hair, firing the tips into a haze of gold around his head. Her heart squeezed painfully, wrenching tight with emotion. Setting her mouth in a grim, severe line, she shoved the bottle back into his chest, hard. ‘Don’t you dare pity me!’ she whispered fervently. ‘Laugh at me, shun me, ride me over with your horse for all I care, but don’t look at me like that. Don’t…’

  Her words dried in her throat as Henry strode towards them. ‘Ah, good, we’re all ready to go. Shoulder that bow, lad, and let’s make tracks.’

  Matilda snatched up the bow and arrows, then stuck her foot angrily into the stirrup and swept neatly into the saddle, wheeling her horse around so she could lead the way once more. A heaviness weighed down the muscles in her chest; Gilan had made it perfectly clear he wanted nothing more to do with her, so why make it harder by coming close to her, offering her a drink? It would clearly be far easier if he was out of her sight and she had nothing more to do with him. And after today, that wish would come true. She would never see him again.

  * * *

  By noon, they were working their way up a diagonal track through a dense pine forest. Columns of light shifted down through chinks in the thick canopy, hitting the spongy ground with bright circles of sun, highlighting the mounds of spent pine needles that muffled the horses’ hooves. The air was resonant with the fresh, bracing smell of pine, the needles warmed by the heat of the day to release their scent. Above the trees, the sky was a cloudless blue, the sun blazing, scorching the countryside with an incessant, unrelenting light.

  ‘The lad seems out of sorts today,’ Henry remarked to Gilan, nodding significantly at Matilda’s rigid, inflexible spine up ahead, her jerky, graceless movements with the reins.

  ‘Perhaps you’ve scared him, by asking him to fight,’ Gilan replied quietly, glancing at the pale curved wood arched against the ragged weave of her tunic. ‘You’ve made him nervous by involving him. He’s only supposed to be guiding us, after all.’ From the moment he had seen Henry throw the bow at Matilda, he had determined to part her from the weapon before the meeting with King Richard. There was no way Matilda was going to fight.

  She hated him, of course. As much as such a beautiful, kind creature was capable of hating another soul. After the way he had treated her last night, after the way his body had lost control at the sight of her, emerging, wet and dripping from the river, seized by a fiery, unstoppable desire, her behaviour was completely justified. Shame washed through him again at the memory, flooded his chest, his guts. He had seen the sadness in her eyes, the brilliant blue of her irises dulled, faded with despair, and knew he had done that to her. Why could she not see that he was no good for her, why did she persist in wanting to believe he was better than he really was?

  * * *

  Matilda fixed her gaze stonily ahead, battling to smother the stormy tears that threatened to blur her vision. Up front, no one could see her face or see the wretchedness that tore at her. If only she hadn’t asked him to help her; if only she hadn’t been forced to seek out her brother for protection. Then she would never have known. Never have known how wonderful it was to lay with a man, to feel the strength of his hard body against her own. She would have remained in blissful ignorance, living out her days as a dried-up old spinster. Alone. Would that have been preferable? Before she had met Gilan, this was the future she had mapped out for herself, but now, now
she knew. She tried to tell herself that he wasn’t worth all this, that he wasn’t worth crying over, but it wasn’t true. He was worth it. He was worth fighting for. But maybe she wasn’t the woman to do it.

  She took a deep shuddering breath, stifling the bubbling stutters that welled up in her lungs. No, this wouldn’t do. This wallowing in self-pity—how could it help? What would Henry say, if he discovered her face awash with tears? He would send her packing, straight back to her brother-in-law, John, without a moment’s hesitation. She was so near to finding Thomas that she couldn’t allow her silly behaviour to jeopardise the whole escapade. She had to forget what had happened last night, banish the memory, folding it up neatly like a precious piece of fabric, tucked close to her heart, never to be looked at again.

  Wound up in her thoughts, Matilda failed to see the arrow flying through the air, until it landed, thwacked into the soft ground in front of her horse. The brilliant steel stuck upright in the earth, shaft vibrating violently in the light. With a terrified squeal, her mare reared up, whinnying desperately, hooves clawing at the air. The sound rent the still air, shocking. Startled, birds flew up from the branches in a cacophony of shrill, hurried chirruping.

  Instinctively, Matilda threw her slight weight forwards, clamping her arms around the animal’s neck. She hung on grimly, the animal’s hooves thrashing down relentlessly on to the spongy ground. ‘Gilan!’ she yelled out without thinking. ‘Watch out!’ Another arrow whizzed through the air, then another, this one inches from her ear. At her back, Henry bellowed out orders; she could hear the crash of bracken, of twigs, as the soldiers sought positions of safety. She sent a desperate wish heavenwards, praying that Gilan would be safe, and then realised her mistake. In her panic, she had called out his first name.

  As the mare’s hooves hit the ground, Matilda bounced down out of the saddle, landing squarely, her slim legs braced apart for balance. Immediately, she plunged into the undergrowth, forcing her way to the other side of a huge mound of brambles. She found herself surrounded by thick trunks, the light shadowed by the dense planting of pines. Perfect. No one would spot her here. Breathing heavily from exertion, from fright, she crouched down, tipping the quiver of arrows and the bow from her back. She fitted one arrow to the bow, pulling the drawstring back, ready to shoot. Her legs wobbled with nerves, her stomach churning, but she screwed up her eyes and scrutinised the boundary line at the top of the forest, the direction from which the first arrow had been shot. No one. Not a single soul. Her brow furrowed as she forced herself to concentrate. To focus. In all this mayhem, maybe Henry wouldn’t have noticed her blunder, for how would a low-born guide know the Christian name of the man who had hired him?